


A Match Lit in the Dark

by TheDoomkitten



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Although The Rest of the Kids and Trolls Will Get Parts, Anyways Sorry That This Is Terrible, Fantasy AU, Gen, I Spent Literal Months Editing This First Chapter, So Let Me Know If I Missed A Spot, So Now Imma Say Fuck It And Post, Strilonde Focused, Summary Will Be Updated As Chapters Are Posted, Tags will be added as we go, This Was Also My LA Project So I Had To Do Extensive Editing To Make It Homestuck Again, updates will be sporadic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 12:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17487773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoomkitten/pseuds/TheDoomkitten
Summary: Strilonde Castle has fallen to Alternia. The land is in chaos. In desperation, the young nobility of the kingdom, Dirk, Dave, and Roxy, attempt an ancient ritual to fight back against the troll army. It doesn't go as planned. Now Dirk and Roxy must travel across the continent alongside a mysterious green skeleton girl to find their wayward sister and set things right.The match is lit. The only thing that remains is to watch as it burns down the world.





	A Match Lit in the Dark

The shadows in the library study room hung thick and low as three teenagers huddled around a candlelit table, poring over an ancient, leatherbound book and trying to ignore the clangor of battle outside. 

"We're ready," one said, snapping the tome shut. The bangs of his platinum hair concealed his orange eyes. His body was a sharp as a knife, yet he moved with unnerving fluidity.

"Yeah, no." The second leaned over the back of his chair. His hair was the same hue as his younger brother's, and he was of similar build. But while his counterpart was prepared to fight at any moment, he was ready to cut and run. There was a key difference. "We're so gonna die if we do this now, Dirk. Actually, Rose’s eldritch shitshows will kill us anyways, but still. Like, what the hell is this even supposed to do? Explode and kill everyone? Call down an angel from whatever heaven they’ve been chilling in and placing bets on how soon us filthy mortals will eradicate each other to help? What was I saying?” Dave paused, taking a moment to get his head on straight while Dirk slapped a palm to his forehead in exasperation. Despite his cool exterior, Dave’s knee was ramming into the bottom of the table at extraordinary speeds, and his ramble imitated its pace.

Snapping his fingers, Dave got back on track. “Right. We are  _ super  _ dead if we break out the iron and glitter and I don't know, special stardust and start chanting Cherubic like an amateur slam poet ready to disgrace his mother at the local theater, except his mother's his opponent and  _ hot damn  _ he's getting owned like a--"

The final member of the group, a young woman nursing a martini, fished her pink-tinged hair out of the alcohol and flopped over to grin at her older brother. She was entirely identical to Dirk, and despite her languorous posture, it was obvious to anyone nearby that her smile was brittle. "Dave. Davey. David."

"Roxy, thanks for trying to get all cutesy to lighten the mood, but I swear to gog that if you call me by the name of some basic bitch farmhand again I will fight you."

Roxy pouted, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "Fiiiiiiiiiine. Anyways, as I was saying... what was I saying, Di-Stri?"

Both of Dirk's siblings had a sense of when he was giving them a long-suffering stare, even though his hair usually concealed his eyes. He was doing it now, for instance. "You were just about to agree with me that we need to start before everyone in the castle dies."

"Right!" Roxy's expression brightened, and she languidly jabbed a finger at Dave. "Now you listen here, mister. We," she hiccuped, "We're gonna die anyways, right? Tonight, tomorrow, eighty years from now, who knows! Probably tonight, though. Even if we don’t do this. So why not go out doing something awesome and saving a buncha people?"

And that was when Dave knew he'd lost. There was no brooking an argument with Roxy when she was this drunk. He threw up his hands and said, "Okay. You know what? Fuck it, let's do this. What could go wrong? Other than being dragged up into the Ring and assimilated into the horrorterrors or some other kind of occult bullshit that Rose loved yammering on about."

"Since we're all agreed, let's get this show on the road." Dirk began the slow, meticulous process of drawing an intricate geometric figure into the library's floor with chalk, while the others placed candles and sprinkles of special stardust where Dirk directed them. Well, Dave helped. Roxy just stood at the window and kept watch, nursing her martini far away from anything she could foul up in her drunken stupor. 

"Guys. Guys! You'll never guess what's happening," she chirped after a few minutes, her hands shaking and her cheery tone patently false. Roxy’s martini slipped from her grip, the glass shattering and the alcohol spilling onto the floor just shy of the circle.

"The trolls spontaneously erupted into glitter fountains that taste like sugary deliciousness and we won?" Dave said, not looking up from his work.

"Nope! They breached the central courtyard and are heading towards us riiiight now!" Roxy gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. 

"...they're ahead of schedule," Dirk muttered. The slow, meticulous process changed gears to a rushed, slapdash one. Even Roxy was allowed to help for the sake of haste. By the time they were finished, the enemy had already begun battering at the door to the library, and the ritual circle had taken a mystical, hazy aspect: a sigil of a spirograph merged with an outward spiral slowly spun and morphed, crackling with green and white lightning.

"Zillyhoo, Zillyhau, Zillywere..." Dirk chanted in an ominous monotone, stepping back to give a respectful distance to the obviously dangerous magical phenomenon.

Dave gave Dirk a scathing glare as he and Roxy followed Dirk’s lead, scampering back. "Normally, I'm a huge advocate for fucking around,” he said, stumbling over his words, “You could say it's a hobby of mine. If I monetized it, I'd be the kingdom's biggest superstar, people would bow to me in the streets even more than they usually do because I'd be such a renowned fuck-arounder and they'd be awed by the sheer force of my fuck-aroundiness, yadda yadda yadda. But--"

The sound of the door to the library splintering apart heralded the arrival of the troll soldiers, illustrating Dave's point.

"--this isn't the time to be fucking around!" he finished, gesturing past the locked-tight door to the study room. The lock provided more mental security than physical; any troll would easily be able to rip it straight off its hinges. 

Dirk mirrored Dave's glare with his own piercing stare, and signed, 'Take it up with whoever wrote the fundamental laws of reality that govern this nonsensical plane of existence, not me. Believe me, I would like to have several words with them as well on the absolutely ridiculous quality of this ritual. Now be quiet, this requires concentration.'

The sound of bookshelves being knocked over and hiss-clicked orders grew closer. At this rate, the trolls would find them before they could complete the ritual. Dave’s mind, already racing at a million miles per hour, accelerated to 90% of lightspeed. Dirk was the best fighter out of all of them by far, but he was also the only one with a solid enough head on his shoulders to keep the ritual going. Roxy was too drunk to last more than a second in the heat of battle. That just left… him. Nobody else. 

Dave’s heart somehow began hammering louder than it already had been. He took a deep breath, forcibly calmed the jitters that had overtaken his entire body, and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing away all of his panic. His expression slackened, becoming an impassive mask, rigid beyond even his normal demeanor. 

After one more moment of hesitation, Dave swore a blue streak under his breath and drew the sword at his side. "Just-- dammit. If I die a terrible, bloody death holding them off, you guys are contractually obligated as siblings to get revenge just because of that horrible cliche, got it?" With that, Dave went to kick the door open, reconsidered, and just opted to unlock it and sneak out before barreling into the library proper, yelling, "HEY, FUCKWADS! I HEARD YOU WANTED A PIECE OF THE HOTTEST ASS IN TOWN! IF THAT'S THE CASE, SORRY TO TELL YOU THAT HE'LL WILL BE CARVING OUT PIECES OF  _ YOUR _ ASSES, COOKING THEM TO AN EXQUISITE CHAR, GARNISHING THEM, AND GIVING FOR YOU TO EAT STILL HOT AND STEAMING, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! YOU GUYS BETTER HAVE SOME INCREDIBLY SHINY SILVER PLATTERS PREPARED FOR THE SERVING THAT'S ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE!" 

Roxy automatically moved to follow her brother, but Dirk caught her by the tunic, lips pressed in a grim line. His other hand tapped his sister's shoulder and signed, 'Dave can handle himself. We need to finish this.' 

And just like that, her own mask broke. “I! Don’t! Care! Leggo! I- We- We need to help him!” Tears welling in her eyes, Roxy struggled to free herself from Dirk's iron grip to stumble drunkenly to Dave's aid, but Dirk refused to yield. 

"Zillywot!" Dirk said aloud after a few more moments of holding both Roxy and his own tears back, tuning Dave's taunts and the trolls' battlecries out as he finished the chant. A pillar of green fire and white lightning erupted from the circle, tearing apart the ceiling above and illuminating the smoky white sky above. 

The blaze died down in seconds, leaving behind a very confused, very green, and very dapper literally-skeletal girl. She rubbed the dome of her cranium with her claws, groaning. "Oh, bloody hell, this is what second death feels like. Expected it to be a lot more nothing. I suppose it's no surprise that he wasn't even competent enough to- wait, no. That isn't right. Wasn't I..." She blinked, gawking at the twins. "Roxy? Dirk? Wh- why- where are we?"

The siblings in question gawked right back. "What the hell?" Dirk said. This was definitely not what the ritual was supposed to do. Sure, it was more than a bit vague, but it was supposed to cause, "a great and precipitous change throughout all the kingdoms of man and troll and carapace," whatever the hell “carapace” meant. A lone green skeleton girl in an admittedly fantastic tux didn't really seem anything like what the book described. 

Squealing, the girl in question leaped towards the twins and wrapped them up in a warm embrace. "Oh my goodness how are you doing Dirk I haven't seen you in ages those clothes are quite dashing Roxy dear I'm especially a fan of that dress and-"

Dirk shoved her away, automatically shifting to a fighting stance. He looked at the strange creature, then at the door, then the window. The ritual had failed, then. Time for Plan B, which was run like hell. He turned to the green skeleton. "You, out of the way." She gasped, holding a hand to her chest. "Roxy, let's go." 

Roxy balked. "But Dave-"

Dirk’s heart sank past the pit of his stomach and into some deep, dark hole where the most wretched of toxic assholes felt bad about themselves. "He. Can. Handle. Himself," he said, teeth grit. Every instinct inside of him agreed with Roxy, screamed that they needed to get their older brother before absconding, said that even if the castle survived the trolls then the king would--

\--he shut down that part of his brain. The math was simple. Dave had a good chance of surviving. The castle was probably a lost cause, maybe the kingdom too, but the rest of the gog damn continent would be completely fucked if they didn't pull this ritual thing off properly. Dave had been right, they were fucking around with shit they didn't understand, no wonder they botched it so badly. They needed to get Rose. The only problem was, well, getting to her. 

And this skeleton girl was another potential obstacle, come to think of it. "Um, pardon me for intruding, but what in the Dickens are you two doing? Because frankly I haven't the faintest clue and it seems that I am missing some very crucial details regarding this whole situation," she said, the bones of where her index finger would be raised. 

Before Dirk could answer, Dave's voice rose over the screeching of metal on metal. "Oh, c'mon, is that all you guys got? A little human baby with a--" A sharp cry of pain rang out. "Ow ow ow ow okay point taken that isn't all you got."

The skeleton girl clapped her hands over her mouth. "Is... is that Dave? Dirk, why aren't you--"

Being asked that question once was already too many times for Dirk. It wasn't like he needed to be reminded that he was the shittiest human being alive. His eye twitched beneath his bangs. "Go and try to save him if you want. We're leaving." With that, Dirk grabbed Roxy by the collar, kicked the window to the outside open, and slid through the opening onto the bough of the great oak tree that had served as the Strilonde children's escape from the castle for years. However, his attempts to drag Roxy out with him were unsuccessful. 

Roxy shook her head vehemently as she clung to the windowsill, fingernails digging deep grooves into the wood. "Look, Dirk. For one, as always, you're, like. Super wrong and we should totally go rescue Dave. But aside from that," she glared at Dirk, "we summoned this girl here, right? Soooo aren't we kind of responsible for her? Like, her blood--do you have blood, sorry, got off topic there--is on our hands if she dies because we ditched her, right? So we should bring her along!"

There wasn't much time to argue. No, scratch that, there wasn't  _ any  _ time to argue. Judging by the sudden drop in the rate of witty quips coming from the library, Dave was losing ground. If they waited any longer, they'd be caught. So, sighing, Dirk acceded to Roxy. "Very well." He neglected to mention exactly which parts of Roxy’s argument he was conceding, however. 

Roxy’s grip on the window relaxed. “Aight, so who’s gonna go back for-” Dirk interrupted her by yanking Roxy off the window and holding her tight as they plummeted to the ground. Executing a perfect three-point landing, Dirk immediately began sprinting into the woods; the skeleton girl shot one last look over her shoulder into the library before gritting her fangs and following.

She screamed the names of both of her brothers into the night, but her anguish was lost beneath the roar of flame and the clangor of battle.

Everything was super not cool right now. And not even the ironic kind of uncool. Just completely, genuinely sucky. As evidenced by how the hulking troll's clawblades just narrowly missed piercing straight through Dave's vulnerable innards and instead “just” cut three huge gashes across his side. "Why. Won't. You. DIE?" the oliveblood roared, green sweat glistening on her brow. She'd taken several deep cuts to the gut, legs, and even her left horn, yet somehow she was still moving.

"You know, I would ask the same of you, except I'm not a cliche-- AGH!" Dave's quip was interrupted by a blue and green blast of psychic energy from just outside of his sight smashing into his back. Dave was knocked across the room by the explosive force of the attack, crashing into the back wall. Dammit, he thought he'd taken out the psionic.

Groaning, Dave got up and wiped the blood from his mouth. "Okay. I'm man enough to admit that was pretty badass."

From the other end of the library, the psionic flashed the most irritating smirk that Dave had ever seen--which was impressive, considering how many irritating smirks he'd received from Rose and Roxy. "At last you acknowledge my power! NOW BOW BEFORE YOUR SUPERIOR, REDBLOOD SCUM! PSYCHO GRENADE VOLLEY!" he roared, then began levitating and forming spheres of explosive psionic energy; hurling them at Dave wildly with his telekinesis and peppering his frenzied onslaught with eyebeams.

Dave expertly danced around his attacks, parrying aside the occasional stray psycho grenade (seriously, what kind of lame name was that?) with his blade. "I have to give it to you two, you're almost giving me the same workout a one-legged toddler with a stick would!" The goldblood screeched with pure, raw anger.

"Azdaja! I thought you were DEAD!" the oliveblood said as she charged Dave, her fist flying towards him so quickly Dave could almost hear the air being torn apart by her claws. 

Azdaja let loose a half-mad cackle. "NO MERE HUMAN SCUM COULD HOPE TO FELL THE PRINCE OF ALL GOLDBLOODS, KONYYL!" Indeed, he was holding his wounds shut with crackling green and blue lightning as he continued to assault Dave with eyebeams, psycho grenades, and even bookshelves and the increasing amount of rubble that was piling up from the massively destructive fight.

Dave slid across the fragmented stone floor and under Konyyl’s legs, cut her hamstrings for the sixth time that fight, and kicked-flipped off her back to launch himself towards Azdaja. But as soon as he was flying through the air, Dave realized that as awesome as that had looked, it definitely wasn’t the wisest move. So it was no surprise that as soon as he got within a few meters of the psionic, he lashed out with psionic lightning, grabbing Dave telekinetically and flung him back towards his partner. Dave barely landed his feet, ducked Azdaja's eyebeams by a hairsbreadth, and got his bearings just in time to spin around and parry the oliveblood's wild flurry of slashes.

These two asshats had come in through the window when Dave was done cleaning up the mooks the main army had sent to clear out the tower. They weren't uniformed, so it was unlikely that they were part of the main Alternian army. Probably some kind of mercenary, tossed around the divisions where they were needed. If that was the case, then they definitely had the tracking skills necessary to find Roxy and Dirk if they got past him. Dave couldn't let that happen. No matter what.

Dave's train of thought was interrupted when Konyyl crashed into him while he was flipping away from a particularly furious wave of psycho grenades. She tore open the other side of his torso, then sat on top of him and pulled her hand back to plunge her claw into his chest. Rather than accepting his fate like a total chump, Dave headbutted Konyyl. A painful prospect, but it would hurt even more for the troll. Their horns were sensitive, right? Konyyl yowled like an injured cat, reeling and giving Dave just enough space to slip out from beneath her. 

Azdaja let out an "HOW DARE YOU BLACKFLIRT WITH MY KISMESIS, YOU PIECE OF BARKBEAST WASTE!"

“Matesprit!” Konyyl corrected as she swayed to her feet, clutching her forehead with one hand and hurling a enormous chunk of rubble at Dave with the other.

“Sorry, dear.”

And as the building began collapsing around the combatants, walls crumbling and floors colliding, Dave got an idea. He leaped down to the next floor to avoid Konyyl's roundhouse kick and batted aside three psycho grenades, aiming them at the oliveblood’s back; the force sent her flying and gave Dave enough breathing room to dodge the rain of stone shrapnel Azdaja rained down upon him. Slowly, ever so slowly, Dave began herding Konyyl towards the nearest hole in the wall, dodging and occasionally very much not-dodging Konyyl's and Azdaja's attacks. When he and the oliveblood were finally at the edge of the tower, Dave yanked Konyyl towards him with all his strength... and kissed her. 

He pulled away, spitting onto what little remained of the floor. "Oh my gog, woman, do you eat whole onions for breakfast?" Konyyl was too stunned to offer a reply.

Azdaja's reprisal was immediate and devastating. His scream alone obliterated the rest of the tower and reduced most of the contents of the devastated library to dust. His gigantic eyebeams flung Dave and Konyyl outside what little remained of the building. Dave kicked Konyyl over the protests of his plethora of broken bones, using the force from the blow to land on one of the pieces of falling rubble. Okay. Wow. That hurt. Hopefully it took out those two--

No such luck. Face contorted with wrath, Azdaja flew towards his mate and flung Konyyl onto the same chunk of plummeting rock. She promptly grabbed Dave's head and smashed it into the stone.

The last thing he heard before he blacked out was, "No, no. Hold on. I have a better idea."

It was April Fourteenth, and when Rose Strilonde woke up, she knew the world was about to end twice.

Not in a linear sense, of course. But the affairs of gods and monsters rarely proceeded in a way that mortals easily understood. If Rose had to put it into words, she'd spend an hour explaining the concept of circumstantial simultaneity to the poor soul that had asked her until they finally gave up and walked away. If you were to ask the narrator of this tale, however, they would phrase it much more concisely.

Time is many things all at once, but for now the easiest analogy to reach for would be that of a one-way mirror, with the future seeing the past while the past can only gaze upon its own reflection. But the future, despite being entirely separate from the past, will remember what it does on the other side of the mirror, and may perhaps imitate it in some large--or small--way. Of course, this analogy only works while dealing with several temporally dislocated timelines at once, to which the concepts of past and future mean very little in the context of their relationship with each other. When the reflection on the past’s side of the room failed to match the movements of the past, that meant something had gone very,  _ very  _ wrong and needed to be rectified with extreme prejudice by the multiverse of Paradox Space. That was the case here.

To continue this analogy, what Rose had just felt was several pasts lighting two matches on one side of the room, while several futures spontaneously combusted on the other. Suffice to say, it was hardly a pleasant feeling. Especially when Rose cast her gaze out into the future and found nothing.

The cloister was quiet. It was always quiet, but it was especially obvious that day. Something in the air had changed. Her caretakers had felt it too, then. Aranea did, at any rate. Vriska wasn't really attuned to these kinds of things.

She had to check the gate. Rose already knew what she would find there, but it would pay to check. Because if she was right, she was definitely in a doomed timeline; and if that was the case, certain preparations would have to be made before everything fell apart. 

Sure enough, the gate's timer was stuck on forty-one days, three hours, six minutes, and twelve seconds. The timer was one of the universe’s few constants, an agent of total inevitability. If it stopped before reaching zero seconds, that meant everything was going to end. Aranea was there too, staring at the massive stone door marked with the primal symbol of Space. Despite how dire the situation was, she was completely unperturbed. She somehow even found the time to do her makeup, contouring her grey skin perfectly and giving her horns a glossy sheen. It was likely a pun on her flirting with destruction. "Rose, analysis,” she snapped, terse. “What did we miss?"

Rose frowned, stroking her chin as she tried and failed the calm the fear hammering in her heart. 'Something Time-related, in all probability,' she signed. Everything cracked. The fabric of Paradox Space was the most likely culprit. 'I visited brother dear's nightmares last night. They were more.... turbulent than usual.'

"Do you have a fix, then?"

'The point of connection was quite apparent in the dream, so yes. It's likely that whatever was supposed to happen was blocked by the Void seal on the gate. I should be able to unlock it, but you'll have to contain me afterwards.'

Aranea grimaced. “The seal? Is there no other way?”

‘Unfortunately not.’

The troll sighed. "Of course. Now, shall we?" Aranea held out a hand. 

There was an almost imperceptible pause before Rose took it. Aranea claimed to be an expert on timeline recovery, but... this was Rose's first time, and frankly? She was afraid to die, no matter how much Aranea reassured her that it wasn't so much dying as merging with the consciousness of her true self. As if that was any more comforting.

Rose closed her eyes, gripping Aranea's hand tightly, and the troll cast the spell.  Reality was crumbling all around her, the timeline's corpse being eaten by the emptiness of the Furthest Ring. She could feel her consciousness being flung into the abyss. And that Rose was gone.

It was April Thirteenth, and when Rose Strilonde woke up, she knew the world was about to end.

Not in a linear sense, of course, but we've already had this conversation. Memories of a timeline now gone flooded Rose's mind, and she bit down on her tongue to prevent a scream of terror. Blood welled up in her mouth. Heedless of the black hour, Rose sprinted down to the gate, pace hastened by urgency and fear. 

The clock was still ticking, thank gog. But Rose could tell that she didn't have much time. She opened her mouth, ready to speak, then... hesitated. The Void seal held dominion over more than the gate. If she released it, there would be consequences. But what other choice did she have? Doom the timeline again? No, no, that would only make things worse for the her that would eventually make the correct decision. The Ring was awake now, and its hunger would shake the world far more terribly than it already would if she hesitated at this juncture. 

So Rose spoke a single word. "Cease."

At that exact moment, several things happened simultaneously:

Rose Turned. Her skin blackened to an empty obsidian. Her hair bleached. Her eyes turned milky white.

Aranea thundered down the stairs, already chanting the words to the containment spell. Chains of Light lashed Rose to the floor of the basement, holding firm despite her thrashing and wailing. Tentacles erupted from the floor to tear them off, but they disintegrated as soon as they touched Aranea's magic.

The Space symbol on the gate glowed a violent green, before flipping and inverting to the symbol of Time..

Hundreds of miles away, a skeletal girl appeared in the center of a ritual circle.

Even further away, a very confused dog girl popped into existence in throne room of Harlish Castle.

So far as to be inconceivable to most minds at this time, a man with a cueball for a head stepped out of a pillar of green fire. At his will, a blank slate awoke, wounded, in a dark alley in the troll city of Outglut.

Hundreds of years in the past yet at the exact same time, a troll woman fell out of the sky, glowing skin marked with countless tattoos.

And the souls of almost a hundred youths were freed of the bonds that had chained their potential. 

The match was lit. The only thing that remained, thought Aranea and the cueball-headed man, was to watch it burn the whole world down. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. So congratulations on making it through this mess. Frankly, I have no idea what I'm doing, and this is my first time actually posting anything on this site in over a year! Wahoo! Updates will be sporadic if they come at all, but kudos and comments sustain me. I really do appreciate constructive criticism, so tear this chapter apart.


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